


Fifteen

by WandererRiha



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Hollander just passes responsibility to everyone else, Kid Fic, Shenanigans, and Gillian is awesome, as per usual, hojo is a stick in the mud, the boys as teens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 05:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20130025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WandererRiha/pseuds/WandererRiha
Summary: We know the military life has been Sephiroth's thing since childhood, but Zack, Angeal and Genesis definitely had actual 'childhoods' at some point, and Reno did too, in one way or another.At some point, someone's got to consider the idea of introducing the Great General to a little childish fun, right?





	Fifteen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AssortedGeekery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AssortedGeekery/gifts).

“Sephiroth, this is Angeal Hewley and Genesis Rhapsodos. They’ll be your new training partners.”

Sephiroth saluted the boys and they saluted back. Like him, they were fifteen, but looked older. They were tall, but not quite as tall as he was. Angeal already had broad shoulders, as well as the scruffy beginnings of facial hair. Genesis, by contrast, was still a little on the lanky side. 

They didn’t get much time to talk. Heidigger handed them each a sword and told them to get started. For the next few hours it was weights, forms, hand-to-hand, and so on. It was fun having people who could keep up with him. Lately Sephiroth had only had monsters to fight since people were too delicate. It wasn’t until after, when they were sent to shower and then to the mess hall, that they finally got a chance to talk.

“Wow, you’re almost as good as they said you were,” Genesis remarked. “Only Angeal could ever keep up with me.”

“I’ve knocked you on your butt more times than I can count,” Angeal commented from under a towel. He scruffed at his hair to dry it. “Don’t mind Genesis,” he said, smiling. “He only thinks in first-person.”

Genesis scowled. “I do not!”

Sephiroth looked back and forth between them, unsure if Angeal’s insult had been genuine. Genesis seemed annoyed, but only mildly so.

“Relax,” Angeal told him. “We razz each other all the time. This pampered rich boy’s my best friend.” He hooked Genesis’ neck in the crook of one arm and scruffed his hair with his free hand.

“Hey! Stop it!” Genesis squawked, ducking out of Angeal’s hold. He did it easily, so evidently no actual harm had been intended. In retaliation, Genesis snapped his towel at Angeal. Angeal returned fire. They didn’t stop trying to whack each other with wet terrycloth until Sephiroth started laughing. He’d never seen anyone spar like that before.

“Oh good, you’re not a robot.” Angeal said it with a smile, so the remark was meant to tease and not insult.

“I’m not,” Sephiroth shrugged.

“Good, let’s go eat.”

\--

Normally Sephiroth ate in silence. Often, he had a book with him to read. With Angeal and Genesis sitting across from him, he was given no opportunity to even open it. They kept quizzing him between bites.

“So who’s your favorite team?”

“What’s your favorite show?”

“You like comics?”

“Favorite superhero!”

“Favorite book!”

“Favorite movie!”

“Ooh! You ever ride a chocobo?”

“What was your favorite subject in school?”

“Chocolate or vanilla?”

“Strawberry, duh!” Genesis answered that one, lightly shoving Angeal.

“That’s not the point, Gen!” Angeal gently elbowed him back.

Sephiroth just stared blankly as they descended into yet more playful bickering. It seemed to be routine with them.

“I’ve ridden a chocobo,” Sephiroth picked the easiest question out of the heap. “It’s part of training.”

Angeal nodded. “Oh yeah. Guess it would be.”

They both looked at him expectantly.

“I don’t um…” Sephiroth stalled, trying to remember what all they’d asked him. “What do you mean by ‘team’?”

“Sports team,” Agneal clarified. “You know. Blitzball?”

“Oh. No, I don’t know blitzball.”

Angeal and Genesis exchanged a horrified look. “Okay, we need to fix that. So you’ve never even seen a game on TV?”

Sephiroth shook his head. “I don’t watch TV, unless you count training films.”

They looked even more alarmed at this.

“Tell me you’ve heard of _‘Airship Captain’_ or _‘Mighty Mog’_?” Genesis pleaded.

Sephiroth shrugged. “No, sorry.”

Genesis crossed his arms, put his head down on them, and began an exaggerated pantomime of weeping. Angeal reached and patted his shoulder, evidently familiar with his theatrics.

“We gotta get you up to speed, man,” Angeal said, voice grave.

\--

“_Gillian._”

Professor Hewley drew what was supposed to be a deep, calming breath before putting the receiver to her ear. Gaia grant her patience.

“Hojo. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“You need to have a word with your sons. They are corrupting _mine_.”

“If they got you to admit that Sephiroth is your own flesh and blood, then give them each a cookie for me. I’m not going to scold them for doing something right.”

There was a grinding of teeth on the other end of the line.

“I will admit to being curious. What’ve they done?”

“Your sons,” Professor Hojo growled, “are filling Sephiroth’s head with nonsense. Do you deny sending Angeal a stack of comic books and toys?”

“No. He asked for them. If you’re offering to reimburse me for the postage, I accept.”

“He’s fifteen! Much too old for such nonsense.”

“Didn’t you have toys when you were a child?” she asked. “Or did you spring full-grown from an abandoned library?”

“They aren’t _children!_” Hojo insisted.

“Just because Midgar dropped the age of conscription to fifteen doesn’t make them adults,” she argued.

“Enlistment,” Hojo corrected.

“_Conscription!_ Call it what it is! Fifteen is still a child. That’s too young to drive, to drink, to smoke, hell they can’t even vote until they turn eighteen! In my mind, they’ve got three more years of childhood left. It’s bad enough they’re already part of the military. Don’t you dare rob them of whatever joy they can find. Just be happy it’s toys and not girls!”

There was a slightly chagrined silence.

“I suppose you have a point,” Hojo conceded.

“Let them be kids for as long as they can,” Gillian’s tone was gentler. “I know you’ve got a lot riding on this. We all do. But don’t do it at the expense of your son. If it makes him happy, let him have the damn comic books. There are far worse things he could be doing.”

Hojo sighed. “Well, rest is part of any training regimen. I don’t suppose a mental break now and again will cause _too_ much harm.”

“I don’t think it’s hurt Angeal or Genesis any.”

“No,” Hojo reluctantly admitted. “They’re rather less mature, however.”

“No they’re not. Sephiroth just never says anything. He’s been taught to keep his mouth shut and stand still, so that’s what he does. I assure you, on the inside he is every bit as silly as the other two.”

“That is somewhat less than reassuring.”

“Teenagers,” she shrugged. “Deal with it.”

With that, she hung up. In Midgar, Professor Hojo contemplated the receiver with some consternation before hanging up as well.

\--

“Are you sure we’re allowed to do this?” Sephiroth asked yet again.

“You’ve asked that like a hundred times,” Genesis groaned. “Yes, already. We’re _fine_. Professor Hollander said it’s okay.”

“But Professor Hojo didn’t.”

“Which is why we didn’t ask him,” Angeal said, fiddling with the break room television.

“But--” Sephiroth began.

“No. Shut up. Movie.” Genesis shoved the bowl of popcorn at him. Faced with the prospect of spilling popcorn everywhere, Sephiroth had no choice but to take it.

“You’ve really never seen a movie before?” Angeal asked, taking a seat and a handful of popcorn.

Sephiroth shook his head. “Just educational filmstrips and training tapes.”

“I am _so_ sorry,” Genesis told him in a tone usually reserved for funerals.

“Shh!” Angeal hissed. “It’s starting!”

“You’ve only seen this like a thousand times!” Genesis whispered back.

“He hasn’t! Shut up!”

“Geeze…”

\--

“Hollander?”

“Hojo.”

“Why are the SOLDIER candidates watching television in the employee lounge?”

“Because that’s the only place that has a television?”

Hojo had to concede that was true. “Yes, but why do they _need_ to watch television?”

“Because it means they will sit still for two hours and not bother me. Can’t very well shoo them outside to play, can we?”

“You could give them something to do.”

“Then I’d have to watch them.”

Again, Hojo was forced to recognize the logic.

“But--”

“Would _you_ care to babysit them 24-7?” Hollander asked, finally taking his eyes away from the microscope he’d been hunched over. “Because I would greatly appreciate that.”

“Oh no! I won’t be responsible for all three of them.”

Hollander shrugged and returned to his slides. “By the way, I told them you wouldn’t mind if they went skateboarding tomorrow.”

“Skateboarding?” Hojo echoed, bewildered. “What on gaia is _that?_”

“No idea. Tell me when you find out.”

\--

He did find out. Against his will, Professor Hojo found out about skateboards, blitzball, comics, cartoons, science fiction, pop music, and a host of other frivolous things he had thought he’d put behind him. His own childhood felt as if it had happened centuries ago. In a way, perhaps it had. He’d been born on another continent to another culture, one much older and more set in its ways than anything found in Midgar. And yet his own formative years had not been entirely cheerless. True he had always preferred books to sports, and had not had many friends, but he had had a few. What had become of them, he wondered?

To his everlasting chagrin, Gillian had been right. Beneath his polished exterior, Sephiroth had the potential to be extremely silly. Part of him grumbled at the thought of his perfect SOLDIER behaving like a foolish child; yet another part of him couldn’t help but smile at their adolescent antics. It was all innocent fun. Childish. Because recruitment age or not, they _were_ still children. Too soon they would face things he would not wish on a grown man. With that in mind, Hojo decided that perhaps the rules could be relaxed, just a little, every now and again.

\--

“Hey Seph, I thought you said you didn’t own any comics,” Genesis commented, pulling a book off the shelf.

“I don’t.”

“Then what’s this?”

Sephiroth got up from the floor where he’d been helping Angeal with a model airship and went over to see what Genesis was looking at. He blinked at the book.

“Oh. That’s not a comic, that’s _manga_. Picture-stories. ”

“That’s what comics are, genius.”

Sephiroth thought about. “Oh. Professor Hojo said I could have them. They were up on the top of his bookshelf.”

“Why are they backwards?” Genesis asked, flipping through one. “What’s it written in, Wutian?”

“Yes.”

“Wait, you can read this?”

“Yes.”

They both stared at him.

“Teach me,” Genesis demanded.

Sephiroth smiled. “Okay.”


End file.
